The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

Politics is the art of the possible.

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.